Bill Clinton to the Rescue
Like many other Americans, I watched the joyous homecoming of Laura Ling and Euna Lee and the discreet behavior of President Bill Clinton who finally got used wisely. Clinton stayed in the background and never uttered a public word at the scene at the Burbank airport. I choked up when little Hana, Lee’s four year old daughter, leaped into her mother’s arms and hung on her as if she intended to never let go again. It was a gotcha moment for me. A few tears dripped from my eyes.
Obviously, the only way to get those women back was with the appropriate bait, with Bill Clinton, who is widely admired throughout the world, including in Kim Jong-il’s court. Kim has coveted getting Bill Clinton to his country ever since he was president. There was good reason for a meeting to happen on both sides. But first many things, official matters, had to worked out; American officials had to get all their ducks in a row, a private plane had to be secured for the flight, and the deal had to be done before the plane took off. That took a while, probably a few weeks. A wealthy benefactor, Stephen Bing, a friend of Bill Clinton’s, offered his plane and even went so far as to pay the $200,000 it would take to go back and forth to Asia, and for incidentals, like the catering for the folks who went with Clinton, like John Podesta. Friends like that can grease just about any wheel.
The posed pictures of the two men look similar to Edger Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, but stiffer, with frozen non-smiles on their faces. Clinton looked like a healthy giant next to the frail-looking diminutive dictator, who supposedly has been in ill-health. But the informal shots of Kim were quite different; he appeared more animated and in one photograph his eyes were bright with admiration for the man sitting across the table from him. There was no doubt in his mind that he could deal with Bill Clinton where he could not with the Bush crowd. This president had been sensitive enough to send Kim a letter of condolence when his father died. Small things like that can add up to something later on. It added to the aura and appeal of the American statesman.
Afterwards I read the column of Mo Dowd in the TIMES. Her rendition of the freeing of the two journalists was annoying as hell, having little to do with them. She treated them as small fry. She brushed aside the human aspect of their story and focused on it as a contest between Bill and Hillary. It was a chance for Bill to outshine Hillary who had left the same day for a lousy ten day trip to Africa, nothing of any prestige. Score one for Billy Boy in his endless combat with his ambitious, competitive wife who boxes in the same ring. What kind of crap is that? Dowd also contended that the experience of Bill was part of a “revenge plot” by Kim. He was upset over Hillary’s comment about the North Koreans acting like “misbehaving children.” Dowd called it “giving the limelight to Daddy punishing Mommy.” Why should Hillary be put off by her husband doing a good thing on Humanitarian grounds? Why must motives always have to be sinister, half-unconscious subplots? This was a simple case of Bill Clinton being the right man for the job and he did it, with a minimum of egotism. End of story.
The tactic of mob disruption at Democratic town meetings on the Health Care Bill is not new; it goes back to that Shout-Down ordered by James Baker at the recount in Florida in 2000, which stopped a recount, which had time pressures, from proceeding with 10,000 votes. The other night on Rachel Maddow’s show she identified the nine members leading the charge that day, a so-called grass root uprising. Not quite. All nine were identified by name and all were political operatives, and she detailed who they worked for in the G.O.P. In addition, after Bush was declared the winner, all found lucrative positions in the Republican Administration for being good soldiers. Then as now, the Republicans would have us believe that these current ‘Mob Rules” events that are silencing debate and democracy are “just folks letting Obama know” his plan for “socialized medicine” is not going to pass muster. Of course the older “folks” don’t want Medicare touched. Once again it is political pros that are being paid by Health Industry corporations or the Republican Party to disrupt the proceedings. It is organized money doing dirty tricks. Rachel also describes several of the groups behind these disruptive tactics. They transport people to sites of meetings and hand out “talking points.” They manufacture protest, while insisting they aren’t that at all. I don’t think they will get away with this time. However, if it intensifies violence could break out.
Friday, August 7, 2009
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Muslim Immigration in Europe
A fellow I went to college with 50 years ago recently reconnected with me via Facebook.com and ever since (since July 1) we have been engaged in a month long email and phone exchange covering the lost decades between us in incredible detail. We have also spent some time speculating about the future, hardly one more pessimistic than the other. For example, I am reading Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam, and the West by Chris Caldwell, a right-of-center journalist who has marshaled an impressive array of facts and statistics that strongly suggest that Islam will ultimately be dominant in Europe without firing a shot or using a suicide bomber. At the same time my old grad school chum saw a video on youtube.com that dealt with the same material. He sent it to me and I was as impressed, as the facts presented were hard, if not impossible, to refute. It concerns the coming demise of Europe as we and History have known it.
In brief, the Muslims will take over Europe by the sheer force of the many more babies they are having compared with the ‘native’ population. The last two generations of Europeans have paid heed to the idea of overpopulation; it was seen as virtuous to have fewer children than before World War ll. The Muslims, however, ignored the warnings about the population explosion, reproducing at a much higher rate (8.6 per family) than people in the West (in Europe most countries are at 1.9 down to 1.3 per family.) Demographers argue that a culture in order to sustain itself must reproduce at a rate of 2.11 kids per family. In 1945 1000,000 immigrants came to Europe to help the rebuilding of a devastated land. The thought was the workers would return to their homeland after a while, but instead a large portion of them decided to stay as the wages, opportunities, and the social welfare system was so much better than Morocco and the Middle East. This step by step ‘invasion’ of Europe is described in considerable detail by Caldwell in his well-researched book. The name of the video is Muslim Demographics. I recommend both to anyone interested in the possible consequences of thoughtless immigration. They constitute 90% of the immigrants now. By 2050 it is estimated that there will be 102,000,000 Muslims in Europe. They are gaining a foothold and they don’t assimilate, being an entity outside the EU, living in self-sustaining enclaves, preserving their culture, religion, morality, and ethnicity. German statisticians say it is too late to reverse the birth rate in Germany, and France isn’t far behind. Europe will be overwhelmed in a few decades.
These thoughts and fact-laden predictions have led me to entertain a few fantasies about the future in Europe. Just consider these possibilities: the Eiffel Tower will become where the faithful are called to prayer; Paris will be shorn of alcohol, jazz clubs, and French movies; Oktoberfest will be nothing but a memory; the Vatican will have been moved to Timbuktu and the Pope will be black and hail from Africa; Chartres,, Wells Cathedral, and St. Peter’s will be retrofitted as mosques, just like St. Sophia’s was in the 16th Century; images of the Christian trinity, Jesus, and other leading figures will be desecrated, painted over, or buried in the basements of museums; and one hesitates to guess how many great works of Western Art will bite the dust, like those Giant Buddhist sculptures did in Afghanistan several years ago that were pulverized by dynamite by the Taliban who took no regard to preserve the icons of another culture and religion. Caldwell mentions that the city of Amsterdam represents a storehouse of the art and culture of the Netherlands. Then he quotes Ayann Hirsi Ali who became a Dutch citizen and Member of Parliament. “If the citizens of Amsterdam, 60% of whom will soon be of non-Western origins, are not part of that, all of this will decay and be destroyed. When the municipality has to vote on whether funds go to preserving art or build a mosque, they may ask, ‘Why should I pay for a stupid painting.’” One trembles with fear and loathing at these possibilities.
A similar phenomenon is happening south of the equator; if it is a countervailing development I can’t say, but it could be under the right circumstances. And that is the migration of Christianity to the southern hemisphere, as it has run out of juice and clout in Northern climes. It has been dying on the vine since the close of Second World War, with eroding attendance at Sunday Mass being the main indicator of a fading religion. It has virtually disappeared from the land of its origins. It is very strong in Africa already, and growing by leaps and bounds, both the Catholic Church and Protestant sects. It is spreading in Asia too. For details of this development read the books of scholar Philip Jenkins. These new Christians could rival the Muslims in Europe in reproductive fury and numbers and they might even entertain ideas of a “crusade” to reclaim Rome and the rest of captive Europe. But problems loom: many Africans and Asians live in Shanty towns and vast slums; there is not the wealth and wherewithal that would be necessary to take back what has been lost. As in its origin, the faith of Jesus is designed for the poor.
There is no point in bemoaning these epochal transformations that are in process. It is like trying to hold back a giant boulder that is rolling down hill. And yet we must think about it. But those of us who won’t be around can merely shrug our shoulders and take our meds. And I realize Islam is a complex subject and issue, a religion with many faces and sects, and that I have simplified it to profile some facts. Plus who knows what unknown forces might change the thrust of events and change the path of the crashing rock of destiny. Or as my old college mate put it, “Perhaps Gawd will intervene.”
In brief, the Muslims will take over Europe by the sheer force of the many more babies they are having compared with the ‘native’ population. The last two generations of Europeans have paid heed to the idea of overpopulation; it was seen as virtuous to have fewer children than before World War ll. The Muslims, however, ignored the warnings about the population explosion, reproducing at a much higher rate (8.6 per family) than people in the West (in Europe most countries are at 1.9 down to 1.3 per family.) Demographers argue that a culture in order to sustain itself must reproduce at a rate of 2.11 kids per family. In 1945 1000,000 immigrants came to Europe to help the rebuilding of a devastated land. The thought was the workers would return to their homeland after a while, but instead a large portion of them decided to stay as the wages, opportunities, and the social welfare system was so much better than Morocco and the Middle East. This step by step ‘invasion’ of Europe is described in considerable detail by Caldwell in his well-researched book. The name of the video is Muslim Demographics. I recommend both to anyone interested in the possible consequences of thoughtless immigration. They constitute 90% of the immigrants now. By 2050 it is estimated that there will be 102,000,000 Muslims in Europe. They are gaining a foothold and they don’t assimilate, being an entity outside the EU, living in self-sustaining enclaves, preserving their culture, religion, morality, and ethnicity. German statisticians say it is too late to reverse the birth rate in Germany, and France isn’t far behind. Europe will be overwhelmed in a few decades.
These thoughts and fact-laden predictions have led me to entertain a few fantasies about the future in Europe. Just consider these possibilities: the Eiffel Tower will become where the faithful are called to prayer; Paris will be shorn of alcohol, jazz clubs, and French movies; Oktoberfest will be nothing but a memory; the Vatican will have been moved to Timbuktu and the Pope will be black and hail from Africa; Chartres,, Wells Cathedral, and St. Peter’s will be retrofitted as mosques, just like St. Sophia’s was in the 16th Century; images of the Christian trinity, Jesus, and other leading figures will be desecrated, painted over, or buried in the basements of museums; and one hesitates to guess how many great works of Western Art will bite the dust, like those Giant Buddhist sculptures did in Afghanistan several years ago that were pulverized by dynamite by the Taliban who took no regard to preserve the icons of another culture and religion. Caldwell mentions that the city of Amsterdam represents a storehouse of the art and culture of the Netherlands. Then he quotes Ayann Hirsi Ali who became a Dutch citizen and Member of Parliament. “If the citizens of Amsterdam, 60% of whom will soon be of non-Western origins, are not part of that, all of this will decay and be destroyed. When the municipality has to vote on whether funds go to preserving art or build a mosque, they may ask, ‘Why should I pay for a stupid painting.’” One trembles with fear and loathing at these possibilities.
A similar phenomenon is happening south of the equator; if it is a countervailing development I can’t say, but it could be under the right circumstances. And that is the migration of Christianity to the southern hemisphere, as it has run out of juice and clout in Northern climes. It has been dying on the vine since the close of Second World War, with eroding attendance at Sunday Mass being the main indicator of a fading religion. It has virtually disappeared from the land of its origins. It is very strong in Africa already, and growing by leaps and bounds, both the Catholic Church and Protestant sects. It is spreading in Asia too. For details of this development read the books of scholar Philip Jenkins. These new Christians could rival the Muslims in Europe in reproductive fury and numbers and they might even entertain ideas of a “crusade” to reclaim Rome and the rest of captive Europe. But problems loom: many Africans and Asians live in Shanty towns and vast slums; there is not the wealth and wherewithal that would be necessary to take back what has been lost. As in its origin, the faith of Jesus is designed for the poor.
There is no point in bemoaning these epochal transformations that are in process. It is like trying to hold back a giant boulder that is rolling down hill. And yet we must think about it. But those of us who won’t be around can merely shrug our shoulders and take our meds. And I realize Islam is a complex subject and issue, a religion with many faces and sects, and that I have simplified it to profile some facts. Plus who knows what unknown forces might change the thrust of events and change the path of the crashing rock of destiny. Or as my old college mate put it, “Perhaps Gawd will intervene.”
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Sotomayor Hearings and the Politics of Fast Destruction
I have been watching the Sotomayor Hearings with interest and frustration. It impresses me as two shows with few contact points. One is the judge and the huge throng of family and supporters sitting behind her, a group beaming with pride that one of their own is up for this high honor of a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court. Show number two is the Republicans playing their usual ‘loyal opposition “ role, as they noisily and blatantly play to their base, not caring a damn about the judge’s seventeen year record, instead focusing much of their attention on one sentence from a speech she made several years ago, and the New Haven Ricci case. That sentence was the “wise Latina” comment. That sentence and the Ricci case are the only red meat issues the Republicans can, or think they can, score heavy points on. They know they can’t win, but that doesn’t seem to be their main aim, which is twofold. One, they are appealing to their base, two, they are laying the ground work for the next appointee to the High Court who they assume will be a dye-in-the-wool liberal. They want to establish the idea that a judge should measure up to a conservative yardstick and that a Liberal can’t be considered mainstream.
Sotomayor is holding up pretty well, as she appears to have been well coached; she is hanging in there, holding her nose when she has to, and waiting for the attacking clique of angry white males to run out of gas. The bottom line on the Hearing is it is about race. The Republicans are arguing that only white males have the stuff to be “impartial and objective,” whereas a “wise Latina” will vote her bias and prejudices; plus she’s likely to be gender-proud and rely on “feelings “too much, as, typically, women are prone to do. We’ve been around this block before. Her record doesn’t indicate any such thing. She’s a by the book—precedent is the guiding rule—judge, very far from a radical judge that Sessions has tried to describe.
Of course by downgrading her status as a capable judge, the Republicans are continuing their self-destructive saga. In the process they are alienating the Hispanics of this nation, a voting group that will be of increasing importance in the upcoming elections of 2010 and 2012. Why they ignore this factor is beyond me. Republicans are cutting their own throats by pretending it is the 1950s and White Males still rule the roost. Adding to the self-destructive tendency of Sessions, Kyle, and Lindsey Graham, we can add the likes of John Ensign, Mark Stanford, Sarah Palin, Cantor and Boehner in Congress, and Dick Cheney, who we are now learning (as if we didn’t know before) was calling the shots on National Security issues, not George W. Bush, who should have been the point man. Ensign, the great spokesman for family values and one of the chorus of voices calling for Bill Clinton’s resignation in 1998, won’t resign, where if anyone should, it would be him. Why isn’t what’s good for the goose is good for the gander? In fact, he announced yesterday that he will be up for reelection in 2012. Sanford trips over his tongue every time he opens his mouth, and he, like Ensign, carried on his affair for several months. As for Palin, she keeps shouting “I am no Quitter!” when she quit in mid-term. Her mind is scrambled eggs and toast.
The sane and sound Peggy Noonan, a sage Republican, wrote a column the other day that the Party needs to forget the base and instead find the best and the brightest within its ranks and rebuild from there. That is good advice but no one seems to be heeding it.
Sotomayor is holding up pretty well, as she appears to have been well coached; she is hanging in there, holding her nose when she has to, and waiting for the attacking clique of angry white males to run out of gas. The bottom line on the Hearing is it is about race. The Republicans are arguing that only white males have the stuff to be “impartial and objective,” whereas a “wise Latina” will vote her bias and prejudices; plus she’s likely to be gender-proud and rely on “feelings “too much, as, typically, women are prone to do. We’ve been around this block before. Her record doesn’t indicate any such thing. She’s a by the book—precedent is the guiding rule—judge, very far from a radical judge that Sessions has tried to describe.
Of course by downgrading her status as a capable judge, the Republicans are continuing their self-destructive saga. In the process they are alienating the Hispanics of this nation, a voting group that will be of increasing importance in the upcoming elections of 2010 and 2012. Why they ignore this factor is beyond me. Republicans are cutting their own throats by pretending it is the 1950s and White Males still rule the roost. Adding to the self-destructive tendency of Sessions, Kyle, and Lindsey Graham, we can add the likes of John Ensign, Mark Stanford, Sarah Palin, Cantor and Boehner in Congress, and Dick Cheney, who we are now learning (as if we didn’t know before) was calling the shots on National Security issues, not George W. Bush, who should have been the point man. Ensign, the great spokesman for family values and one of the chorus of voices calling for Bill Clinton’s resignation in 1998, won’t resign, where if anyone should, it would be him. Why isn’t what’s good for the goose is good for the gander? In fact, he announced yesterday that he will be up for reelection in 2012. Sanford trips over his tongue every time he opens his mouth, and he, like Ensign, carried on his affair for several months. As for Palin, she keeps shouting “I am no Quitter!” when she quit in mid-term. Her mind is scrambled eggs and toast.
The sane and sound Peggy Noonan, a sage Republican, wrote a column the other day that the Party needs to forget the base and instead find the best and the brightest within its ranks and rebuild from there. That is good advice but no one seems to be heeding it.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Mankell and the Beasts
The other night I stopped reading The White Lioness by the Swedish author Henning Mankell, who I got into after seeing the first installment of “Wallander,” on Masterpiece Theater. Wallander is the name of his detective, Kurt Wallander, age 44, master sleuth and passionate advocate of full commitment to a case. He’s my kind of guy: He doesn’t work out; he drinks too much, and lives in a haphazard, slovenly manner. But when it comes to a case he is a Gila Monster: once he takes hold, you can’t shake him off. Anyway, I kept the last chapter of the novel till tomorrow, which I’ll read while my wife is up in Phoenix. I also wanted to fit in a movie later.
I am very impressed by Mankell’s writing; it has the same driving narrative force that, for example, Michael Connelly has as a storyteller. The White Lioness opens with the inexplicable killing of a woman, a real estate agent, who had stopped at a house to ask direction as she was lost looking for a house. She was shot in the forehead by some unknown assailant, a man who threw her body down a well. Wallander was utterly at a loss for a motive; the case became even more puzzling because the house was blown up as well and after the blast investigators found a black index finger on the ground, and inside the house they stumbled upon pieces of a pistol made only in South Africa. The reader finds out before Wallander that the person who shot the woman was a an ex-KGB agent working for some fascist network in South Africa who are plotting the assassination of Nelson Mandela who will soon become the President of South Africa in 1994. They want to kill him, which would cause chaos and violence, providing them an opportunity to take over the government and to declare that Apartheid will stay in force and the white minority will continue to rule the country. Eventually Wallander will be able to connect the dots but will take over 450 pages to do that as the plots twists and turns. The KGB agent proves to be formidable opponent, and he feels the same about Wallander who he originally scoffed at as a provincial policeman. All things considered, the novel was an exciting and entertaining read.
The movie I chose to see the night I put the book down was another of those obscure titles that I am fond of taking a chance on. This one was a fantasy type film called The Outlander, with Jim Caviezel, John Hurt, and Ron Pearlman, who is one of my favorite character actors. I had never heard of the film but the cast was appealing so I gave it a look-see. It was the ultimate derivative movie and a bizarre curiosity as such. For example, it combined elements of a medieval fantasy and extraterrestrial life forms, and a terrifying monster that was part Grendal from Beowulf and the scary creature in the Alien series; there was also an idea from King Kong, and other snippets from other movies, like the Banquet Hall drinking scene in the recent Beowulf movie and a magic sword comparable to Excalibur.
In the year 709 A.D. a space ship splashes to earth in a lake somewhere in Scandinavia and a lone survivor named Kanan (Caviezel) has to make his way on a strange planet although he looks like a normal human being. He is obviously from a distant and advanced civilization and speaks a foreign tongue. He is in touch with his home base and he has with him a gadget that instills in him (through one eye) the language and culture of the world he has landed in, which is pretty nifty and very convenient. He has also a powerful weapon, a ray gun of a sort, but he loses it when he is captured by the tribe of Vikings who live in the area. They don’t know what to make of this stranger (is he friend or foe?) but when a mysterious and ghoulish beast shows up that the locals don’t have the wherewithal to handle, Kanan comes in handy, for he not only knows about the beast, he brought it to earth. He had been on a mission to exterminate the beast and its kind on a planet his people wanted to control. In order to save itself the creature, like the lizard-like beast in Alien, snuck into the space craft ; it also managed to survive the crash. This particular ogre is more radioactive than the Alien, as he heats up when aroused to action and lights up like a Christmas tree fed by LSD. This was when Kanan came up with the King Kong idea: Let’s dig a huge, deep ditch, trap the creature, fill it with flammable material and light the fire and see what happens. Well, the plan succeeds, the beast falls into the pit, there is fireball created, but the beast arises from the flames more irritated than damaged in any way. Fire seems to be the element he dominates; it is coeval with his nature. Going back to the drawing board, Kanan comes up with another idea; he dives down to space craft at the bottom of the lake and brings to the surface some of the metal the craft is made out of, an extraterrestrial alloy, much stronger than what was then available to the Vikings. With that metal he fashions the sword, a truly magic weapon like that famous mythic sword, Excalibur. With it he slays the fire-breathing dragon that he had accidentally brought to earth. Unfortunately the king was killed during the earlier battles with the beast. But the tribe turns to Kanan as their new King and he wins the hand of the King’s daughter too, so all turns out well for the ‘Man Who Fell to Earth’ from ‘Father Sky.’
I couldn’t help but wonder what he did with that machine he used to adjust to his new environment? He could also still be in touch with his Homeland. But we never heard of this possibility again.
After the Orlando’s surprise win over Cleveland and LeBron James, I watched Valkyrie with Tom Cruise and a cast of old worthies. As far as I know, it did not do well at the box office and now I understand why; it is a listless costume drama with an ending familiar to every schoolboy which takes the punch out of film’s martyrdom at the end of the film.. Other than the opening sequence in the African desert, where Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg (Cruise) suffers his injuries, the loss of his right hand, left eye, and two fingers off his surviving hand, the film is by and large a bunch of talking heads working on a conspiracy that somehow did not add up to suspense or high drama. The director also underworked the Colonel’s relation with his family; it would have helped to know them longer or better. They were just pawns to establish he had a family. The whole thing just fell flat and the public sniffed it out. There should have been a better way to tell the story that would have had more emotional weigh and impact. All the conspirators were summarily shot as soon as it was understood Hitler was still alive. Nine months later Hitler committed suicide in his bunker. I didn’t know this but there were 15 attempts to assassinate Hitler. It was a shame too, as a lot of people died during those nine months. But that all seems part of the nihilism that made up Hitler’s life and death.
By the way, Wallander and his associates foil the plot to kill Mandela, but just barely. Wallander outduels the Russian and two South African security agents seize the shooter just as he got off a bad shot.
I am very impressed by Mankell’s writing; it has the same driving narrative force that, for example, Michael Connelly has as a storyteller. The White Lioness opens with the inexplicable killing of a woman, a real estate agent, who had stopped at a house to ask direction as she was lost looking for a house. She was shot in the forehead by some unknown assailant, a man who threw her body down a well. Wallander was utterly at a loss for a motive; the case became even more puzzling because the house was blown up as well and after the blast investigators found a black index finger on the ground, and inside the house they stumbled upon pieces of a pistol made only in South Africa. The reader finds out before Wallander that the person who shot the woman was a an ex-KGB agent working for some fascist network in South Africa who are plotting the assassination of Nelson Mandela who will soon become the President of South Africa in 1994. They want to kill him, which would cause chaos and violence, providing them an opportunity to take over the government and to declare that Apartheid will stay in force and the white minority will continue to rule the country. Eventually Wallander will be able to connect the dots but will take over 450 pages to do that as the plots twists and turns. The KGB agent proves to be formidable opponent, and he feels the same about Wallander who he originally scoffed at as a provincial policeman. All things considered, the novel was an exciting and entertaining read.
The movie I chose to see the night I put the book down was another of those obscure titles that I am fond of taking a chance on. This one was a fantasy type film called The Outlander, with Jim Caviezel, John Hurt, and Ron Pearlman, who is one of my favorite character actors. I had never heard of the film but the cast was appealing so I gave it a look-see. It was the ultimate derivative movie and a bizarre curiosity as such. For example, it combined elements of a medieval fantasy and extraterrestrial life forms, and a terrifying monster that was part Grendal from Beowulf and the scary creature in the Alien series; there was also an idea from King Kong, and other snippets from other movies, like the Banquet Hall drinking scene in the recent Beowulf movie and a magic sword comparable to Excalibur.
In the year 709 A.D. a space ship splashes to earth in a lake somewhere in Scandinavia and a lone survivor named Kanan (Caviezel) has to make his way on a strange planet although he looks like a normal human being. He is obviously from a distant and advanced civilization and speaks a foreign tongue. He is in touch with his home base and he has with him a gadget that instills in him (through one eye) the language and culture of the world he has landed in, which is pretty nifty and very convenient. He has also a powerful weapon, a ray gun of a sort, but he loses it when he is captured by the tribe of Vikings who live in the area. They don’t know what to make of this stranger (is he friend or foe?) but when a mysterious and ghoulish beast shows up that the locals don’t have the wherewithal to handle, Kanan comes in handy, for he not only knows about the beast, he brought it to earth. He had been on a mission to exterminate the beast and its kind on a planet his people wanted to control. In order to save itself the creature, like the lizard-like beast in Alien, snuck into the space craft ; it also managed to survive the crash. This particular ogre is more radioactive than the Alien, as he heats up when aroused to action and lights up like a Christmas tree fed by LSD. This was when Kanan came up with the King Kong idea: Let’s dig a huge, deep ditch, trap the creature, fill it with flammable material and light the fire and see what happens. Well, the plan succeeds, the beast falls into the pit, there is fireball created, but the beast arises from the flames more irritated than damaged in any way. Fire seems to be the element he dominates; it is coeval with his nature. Going back to the drawing board, Kanan comes up with another idea; he dives down to space craft at the bottom of the lake and brings to the surface some of the metal the craft is made out of, an extraterrestrial alloy, much stronger than what was then available to the Vikings. With that metal he fashions the sword, a truly magic weapon like that famous mythic sword, Excalibur. With it he slays the fire-breathing dragon that he had accidentally brought to earth. Unfortunately the king was killed during the earlier battles with the beast. But the tribe turns to Kanan as their new King and he wins the hand of the King’s daughter too, so all turns out well for the ‘Man Who Fell to Earth’ from ‘Father Sky.’
I couldn’t help but wonder what he did with that machine he used to adjust to his new environment? He could also still be in touch with his Homeland. But we never heard of this possibility again.
After the Orlando’s surprise win over Cleveland and LeBron James, I watched Valkyrie with Tom Cruise and a cast of old worthies. As far as I know, it did not do well at the box office and now I understand why; it is a listless costume drama with an ending familiar to every schoolboy which takes the punch out of film’s martyrdom at the end of the film.. Other than the opening sequence in the African desert, where Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg (Cruise) suffers his injuries, the loss of his right hand, left eye, and two fingers off his surviving hand, the film is by and large a bunch of talking heads working on a conspiracy that somehow did not add up to suspense or high drama. The director also underworked the Colonel’s relation with his family; it would have helped to know them longer or better. They were just pawns to establish he had a family. The whole thing just fell flat and the public sniffed it out. There should have been a better way to tell the story that would have had more emotional weigh and impact. All the conspirators were summarily shot as soon as it was understood Hitler was still alive. Nine months later Hitler committed suicide in his bunker. I didn’t know this but there were 15 attempts to assassinate Hitler. It was a shame too, as a lot of people died during those nine months. But that all seems part of the nihilism that made up Hitler’s life and death.
By the way, Wallander and his associates foil the plot to kill Mandela, but just barely. Wallander outduels the Russian and two South African security agents seize the shooter just as he got off a bad shot.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Profies of Three Movies
Finally saw “The Wrestler.” Pretty damn good. The film deserved the praise it has received. The match between the story and the actor was, so to speak, made in heaven. A has-been actor, Mickey Rourke, plays a has-been wrestler, Randy “The Ram” Robinson, with long blond tresses, a scarred body, and a heart problem, in every sense of the term.
It’s a downbeat story about the tail end of a pathetic career in the ring, a tale not meant for a large audience because it is too peculiar, set as it is in a small obscure world of no charm or sweep, with subject matter that smells of sweat and blood, and with self-annihilation for a conclusion—not the kind of thing that would appeal to the vast majority of today’s moviegoers. The film balances the dehumanization of the profession and the character’s emotional sensitivity. Once he blew it with his young daughter and the stripper he had taken a fancy to rejects him, and knowing he was lost without his performance in the ring, despite its pathos and ridiculousness, and that there were no other doors open to him to start another life for someone like himself and despite a doctor’s warning about his heart, he went back to a trade that will kill him. But since the wrestling ring was the be-all and end-all of his meager emotional existence, so it might as well be the vehicle and area of his death.
The other surprise about the movie was the director, Darren Aronofsky, whose previous movies, “Pi,” “Requiem for a Dream,” and “The Fountain,” were all in a different genre, to say the least, much more like arty films that depended on great camera work and rich images. Not so in “The Wrestler.” He obviously wanted to show Hollywood he could make a more ordinary looking movie. And the film will certainly revive Mickey Rourke’s career.
Like “The Wrestler” “Frost/Nixon” was worth the price of admission because of the acting. I remember Frank Langella way back when as Dracula. He’s come a long way, baby! The movie deals exclusively with the 4-part interview that David Frost, a talk show host, had with ex-President Richard Nixon in 1977, with the final interview being the memorable one because it dealt with Watergate. It was revealing to see the real interviews in Special Features because you could see the difference of tone and emotion in the two takes on Nixon. The spoken lines were the same but they were as different as night and day when it came to the expression of personality. The real Nixon remained a cool customer no matter what he was saying; his facial expression never really changed, remaining a bland mask, like it was frozen in place, not really reeling under his devastating admissions—for example, when he said, “When the President does it, it is not a crime.” The whole weight of the movie rests on that line, and Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld banked on Nixon’s lead, and that attitude worked for them until recently, when the whole superstructure of their lies, secrecy, and policy of torture has came crashing down, like the flimsy House of Cards it always was. In contrast to the real Nixon, Langella’s face literally rippled with emotion and the weight of what he was saying--how he had screwed up royally and disappointed the American people. His face expressed the regret, sadness, and guilt, and his eyes were like pools of discovery, showing how he felt below the surface. Therefore I’d have to say Langella’s Nixon is an interpretation, an attempt to portray the ex-President as if he was capable of feeling deeper emotions through the of claiming of the lawlessness of his actions during Watergate.
There was another telling scene that I assume was speculation, a phone encounter between Nixon and Frost the night before the final interview. In that conversation, which is largely one-sided, Nixon carries on with considerable resentment about the rich snobs from Wall Street, the “well born” and the Country Club set who never accepted his humble origins and banal education. I suspect Ron Howard threw that in to spice up the next day’s confrontation.
The secondary characters around the two principles played well too, keeping Frost aggressive, telling him he could not let Nixon off the hook, but he had to nail him, which he finally did. In a sense, they ganged up on Nixon. It was a game of pin the tail on the donkey.
The Screenwriter/Director of “Nothing but the Truth,” Rod Lurie, used the subtext of the Valerie Plame revelations and her husband Joe Wilson’s articles that were critical of the Bush Administration in shaping his story which diverged widely from the case, being in the end more fiction than fact. But it certainly was the inspiration for the movie and the case certainly haunts the movie as a very pregnant undercurrent.
All things considered, “Nothing but the Truth” was gripping drama and a compelling story of the price that sometimes has to be paid for integrity and a journalist protection of sources; and there is considerable irony when we finally find out who the source was. The reporter in real life was Judith Miller of New York Times and she did serve time for not revealing her source, because it was a National Security issue, but it was much shorter than the woman in the film who ends up a year in jail and two in prison. More than that, she lost her job with the Times. But she was fired less for the Plame story, which was actually broke by Bob Novak, another Beltway journalist, but for her defending of the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld policy in Iraq, which she continually supported uncritically. The movie makes it clear it is a tricky proposition to play the spy game; one can easily end up dead. Once you are outed you become suspect to your own colleagues at CIA, and your life can be in danger. Kate Beckinsale plays the reporter in the movie and she goes through hell, not only incarceration for three years, but her marriage dissolved under pressure, she was alienated from her son, and was severely beaten by another inmate. Hard times came as a result of taking a principled stand. It took a resolute soul to do what she did.
Incidentally, in case anyone is curious, Judith Miller now works for the FOX NEWS Network.
It’s a downbeat story about the tail end of a pathetic career in the ring, a tale not meant for a large audience because it is too peculiar, set as it is in a small obscure world of no charm or sweep, with subject matter that smells of sweat and blood, and with self-annihilation for a conclusion—not the kind of thing that would appeal to the vast majority of today’s moviegoers. The film balances the dehumanization of the profession and the character’s emotional sensitivity. Once he blew it with his young daughter and the stripper he had taken a fancy to rejects him, and knowing he was lost without his performance in the ring, despite its pathos and ridiculousness, and that there were no other doors open to him to start another life for someone like himself and despite a doctor’s warning about his heart, he went back to a trade that will kill him. But since the wrestling ring was the be-all and end-all of his meager emotional existence, so it might as well be the vehicle and area of his death.
The other surprise about the movie was the director, Darren Aronofsky, whose previous movies, “Pi,” “Requiem for a Dream,” and “The Fountain,” were all in a different genre, to say the least, much more like arty films that depended on great camera work and rich images. Not so in “The Wrestler.” He obviously wanted to show Hollywood he could make a more ordinary looking movie. And the film will certainly revive Mickey Rourke’s career.
Like “The Wrestler” “Frost/Nixon” was worth the price of admission because of the acting. I remember Frank Langella way back when as Dracula. He’s come a long way, baby! The movie deals exclusively with the 4-part interview that David Frost, a talk show host, had with ex-President Richard Nixon in 1977, with the final interview being the memorable one because it dealt with Watergate. It was revealing to see the real interviews in Special Features because you could see the difference of tone and emotion in the two takes on Nixon. The spoken lines were the same but they were as different as night and day when it came to the expression of personality. The real Nixon remained a cool customer no matter what he was saying; his facial expression never really changed, remaining a bland mask, like it was frozen in place, not really reeling under his devastating admissions—for example, when he said, “When the President does it, it is not a crime.” The whole weight of the movie rests on that line, and Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld banked on Nixon’s lead, and that attitude worked for them until recently, when the whole superstructure of their lies, secrecy, and policy of torture has came crashing down, like the flimsy House of Cards it always was. In contrast to the real Nixon, Langella’s face literally rippled with emotion and the weight of what he was saying--how he had screwed up royally and disappointed the American people. His face expressed the regret, sadness, and guilt, and his eyes were like pools of discovery, showing how he felt below the surface. Therefore I’d have to say Langella’s Nixon is an interpretation, an attempt to portray the ex-President as if he was capable of feeling deeper emotions through the of claiming of the lawlessness of his actions during Watergate.
There was another telling scene that I assume was speculation, a phone encounter between Nixon and Frost the night before the final interview. In that conversation, which is largely one-sided, Nixon carries on with considerable resentment about the rich snobs from Wall Street, the “well born” and the Country Club set who never accepted his humble origins and banal education. I suspect Ron Howard threw that in to spice up the next day’s confrontation.
The secondary characters around the two principles played well too, keeping Frost aggressive, telling him he could not let Nixon off the hook, but he had to nail him, which he finally did. In a sense, they ganged up on Nixon. It was a game of pin the tail on the donkey.
The Screenwriter/Director of “Nothing but the Truth,” Rod Lurie, used the subtext of the Valerie Plame revelations and her husband Joe Wilson’s articles that were critical of the Bush Administration in shaping his story which diverged widely from the case, being in the end more fiction than fact. But it certainly was the inspiration for the movie and the case certainly haunts the movie as a very pregnant undercurrent.
All things considered, “Nothing but the Truth” was gripping drama and a compelling story of the price that sometimes has to be paid for integrity and a journalist protection of sources; and there is considerable irony when we finally find out who the source was. The reporter in real life was Judith Miller of New York Times and she did serve time for not revealing her source, because it was a National Security issue, but it was much shorter than the woman in the film who ends up a year in jail and two in prison. More than that, she lost her job with the Times. But she was fired less for the Plame story, which was actually broke by Bob Novak, another Beltway journalist, but for her defending of the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld policy in Iraq, which she continually supported uncritically. The movie makes it clear it is a tricky proposition to play the spy game; one can easily end up dead. Once you are outed you become suspect to your own colleagues at CIA, and your life can be in danger. Kate Beckinsale plays the reporter in the movie and she goes through hell, not only incarceration for three years, but her marriage dissolved under pressure, she was alienated from her son, and was severely beaten by another inmate. Hard times came as a result of taking a principled stand. It took a resolute soul to do what she did.
Incidentally, in case anyone is curious, Judith Miller now works for the FOX NEWS Network.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
23 April 2009: Journal Notes
23 April 2009: Journal Notes.
Things are heating up in regard the torture issue. It appears that Obama is backing away from his attitude of not prosecuting those responsible for the torture inflicted on detainees; and he is doing it by saying it is up to Justice to decide what to do about what most Democrats agree is unquestionably abuse that rose to the level of torture. The rub here is the bulk of congressional Republicans don’t agree with the Armed Services Committee report just released and signed by Committee Chairman Car Levin of Michigan, a Democrat. The Republicans won’t buy it because it is a partisan document, so-called, simply because the Democrats wrote it, which means it can’t be objective. The only truth they recognize is their version of it. They don’t want the Democrats to get an investigation going because it will ultimately involved Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Powell, Tenet, McLaughlin, and the lawyers, including Yoo, Addington, and Bybee, who wrote the torture memos. The word is that Rice was opposed to the idea of harsh enhanced interrogation techniques, but lost out as she often did to Cheney and Rumsfeld, who ruled the roost in Bush’s first term. She eventually went along with the program. A Pentagon lawyer by the name of Philip D. Zelikow was on Rachel Maddow’s show on Tuesday night. It appeared that he could be a pivotal figure in this case; Rice appointed him her agent in regard the torture issue. When he took a look at the torture memos he was appalled by their poor logic and inadequate defense of harsh interrogations. They were a pathetic exercise as far as he was concerned. The memos flew in the face of logic and the law about torture. But he recognized the lawyers had their perspective and they understood what was expected of them—a legal smoke screen to hide the fact of torture. But they went a step farther: they tried to round up all existing copies of Zelikow rebuttal argument so they could destroy the copies; but they did not succeed, and hopefully the memo will surface in the near future. The fact they wanted to destroy the memo indicates there was validity to his argument and criticism.
Progressives like Rachel and Keith Olbermann are hot to trot on the torture issue, and so is my wife; they are so outraged by the abuses perpetuated by the Bush Administration they want them punished for their crimes, no matter what. I see things somewhat differently. To pursue the torture thing would be to invite a scandal as huge and dramatic as the impeachment of Bill Clinton. It would swallow up energy and time like the impeachment did, which allowed exactly nothing to get done in Clinton’s second term. That’s what I am afraid of, a snarling of purpose, a huge distraction, and a delaying of essential concerns. Congress would wallow in another legal drama and things that needed to get done would languish on the sidelines. I’m sure that’s what Obama was thinking of with his reluctance to go ahead with prosecutions. They would have to drag Bush, Cheney and the rest of them to court kicking and screaming; they would never willingly cooperate.
There is also a report that the Taliban have taken over another province, one just south of the Swat province, which put them 60 miles from Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan. They have already imposed Islamic law in the province just south of Swat, which means men must grow beards, women must give up jobs and school, and Islamic Law must be followed by one and all. They brook no other way. One of their religious leaders said their great purpose was to convert the rest of the world to their Faith and Law. They apparently are seriously considering invading Islamabad and trying to establish Taliban rule over the central government. Hillary Clinton addressed the situation yesterday, saying it WOULD ENDANGER US AND THE ENTIRE REGION because Pakistan is a Nuclear State. She said the Pakistani government was basically abdicating to the Taliban and other extremists.
Things are heating up in regard the torture issue. It appears that Obama is backing away from his attitude of not prosecuting those responsible for the torture inflicted on detainees; and he is doing it by saying it is up to Justice to decide what to do about what most Democrats agree is unquestionably abuse that rose to the level of torture. The rub here is the bulk of congressional Republicans don’t agree with the Armed Services Committee report just released and signed by Committee Chairman Car Levin of Michigan, a Democrat. The Republicans won’t buy it because it is a partisan document, so-called, simply because the Democrats wrote it, which means it can’t be objective. The only truth they recognize is their version of it. They don’t want the Democrats to get an investigation going because it will ultimately involved Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Powell, Tenet, McLaughlin, and the lawyers, including Yoo, Addington, and Bybee, who wrote the torture memos. The word is that Rice was opposed to the idea of harsh enhanced interrogation techniques, but lost out as she often did to Cheney and Rumsfeld, who ruled the roost in Bush’s first term. She eventually went along with the program. A Pentagon lawyer by the name of Philip D. Zelikow was on Rachel Maddow’s show on Tuesday night. It appeared that he could be a pivotal figure in this case; Rice appointed him her agent in regard the torture issue. When he took a look at the torture memos he was appalled by their poor logic and inadequate defense of harsh interrogations. They were a pathetic exercise as far as he was concerned. The memos flew in the face of logic and the law about torture. But he recognized the lawyers had their perspective and they understood what was expected of them—a legal smoke screen to hide the fact of torture. But they went a step farther: they tried to round up all existing copies of Zelikow rebuttal argument so they could destroy the copies; but they did not succeed, and hopefully the memo will surface in the near future. The fact they wanted to destroy the memo indicates there was validity to his argument and criticism.
Progressives like Rachel and Keith Olbermann are hot to trot on the torture issue, and so is my wife; they are so outraged by the abuses perpetuated by the Bush Administration they want them punished for their crimes, no matter what. I see things somewhat differently. To pursue the torture thing would be to invite a scandal as huge and dramatic as the impeachment of Bill Clinton. It would swallow up energy and time like the impeachment did, which allowed exactly nothing to get done in Clinton’s second term. That’s what I am afraid of, a snarling of purpose, a huge distraction, and a delaying of essential concerns. Congress would wallow in another legal drama and things that needed to get done would languish on the sidelines. I’m sure that’s what Obama was thinking of with his reluctance to go ahead with prosecutions. They would have to drag Bush, Cheney and the rest of them to court kicking and screaming; they would never willingly cooperate.
There is also a report that the Taliban have taken over another province, one just south of the Swat province, which put them 60 miles from Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan. They have already imposed Islamic law in the province just south of Swat, which means men must grow beards, women must give up jobs and school, and Islamic Law must be followed by one and all. They brook no other way. One of their religious leaders said their great purpose was to convert the rest of the world to their Faith and Law. They apparently are seriously considering invading Islamabad and trying to establish Taliban rule over the central government. Hillary Clinton addressed the situation yesterday, saying it WOULD ENDANGER US AND THE ENTIRE REGION because Pakistan is a Nuclear State. She said the Pakistani government was basically abdicating to the Taliban and other extremists.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
For Nasima and Kaia: Reflections on the Inferno.
For Nasima and Kaia: Reflections on the Inferno
“The Inferno” took place over a two week period in July 1968 while your mother and I were living in Las Vegas. Why did I use that term? First of all, “The Inferno” is a reference to two authors, Dante and August Strindberg, both of whom wrote books called THE INFERNO, books that deal with hellish ordeals in the underworld that led to deeper vision of first and last things. Dante’s work was produced in the context of late medieval Christianity, that is, with a belief system that featured heaven, hell, and purgatory, ending with a cosmic beatific vision. Strindberg called his ordeal an Inferno experience because it paralleled a descent into the underworld, that is, it was the psychological equivalent, an encounter with personal demons that had long haunted his inner world. He experienced a schizoid episode that put him over the edge of sanity. In other words, it resembled an acid trip; he came back to terra firma. I would describe my INFERNO along the same lines: it was hellish and schizoid, but also visionary and mystical. It also happened during the infernal heat of the Mojave Desert in the summer. At certain moments during the ordeal I felt like I was a stand-in for St. Anthony during his trial in the desert: being under attack by unspeakable demons, alone, cut-off, and locked into a bottomless pit of blackness. (Something else I share with Strindberg is we both had psoriasis.)
This may sound strange to you two but I was poised between the sun and moon for those two magical weeks. The torrid orb of the sun dominated the daylight hours and the moon was the magnetic center of the night time hours. They both assumed an extraordinary significance for me during the length of the ordeal. They were like the polarities of consciousness for me and my life was the pendulum that swung back and forth between the two orbs of energy. They were the two ends of my psyche, the orange ball of fire during the day, and the white sphere of nighttime illumination, Sol et Luna. I always would go outside at dawn to stare at the rising sun coming up over the mountains on the eastern horizon; that was just before I would go to bed for several hours as I had stayed up all night during the summer. I did that for 5 summers while living in Las Vegas. At night I often took walks and sat out in the open desert and stared at the moon for long minutes, as if mesmerized, as if its vibe and power were penetrating me from that great distance in the heavens. I know how that must sound peculiar to you but that is how it felt to me at the time. It was up there and down here simultaneously. In the two week period of The Inferno the moon obviously changed shape but in my memory it was always a full, perfect, super-bright white circle. The Inferno state, while terrifying on certain levels, bestowed on me feelings of Cosmic Consciousness and a sense of the oneness of all things, which I have never lost.
For all the details of The Inferno please read PRIMUS ROTA, preferably the second version, which is not on the computer yet.
The first year after the experience was very strange. I was lost in a fog, nothing looked the same, and things had been transfigured. I’d go to the supermarket at 3 AM and see showgirls shopping after their shows with their make-up still on; to me they were like gaudy apparitions with goop on their faces. I was flying high inside The Magic Theater that Herman Hesse wrote about in one of his novels. I wasn’t sure if a veil had been ripped away from my perceptions or if one had been added. When the semester started I went through the motions of teaching, just like before, but I was no longer identified with my actions; my career and my role on campus were like ashes in my mouth. They had lost their previous flavor. I walked among my colleagues like a ghost, not connecting with them either. They were puppets in a play I was no longer part of. I was not the same individual anymore, but exactly who I was, I wasn’t at all sure. But I did know I could not continue to do the same kind of painting and drawing that I had been doing for the past 4 or 5 years. The experience that was my Baptism by Fire had me thinking I had to find another way, a manner and style more aligned with my new if hazy understanding. New self-knowledge had me thinking and feeling down different avenues, which, I felt, called for a new expression.
The second semester that school year, 1968-1969, was a time of decision for your mother and I. She decided she wanted to go back to school for a Masters in film and dance. Since I needed time to evaluate the Inferno experience, I was game to try and obtain a leave and go with her to wherever she wants to go to school, which turned out to be the University of Oregon. The Administration was more than happy to give me a leave (without pay) to get rid of me for at least a year. It was a smart move to get out of town; it lifted me out of a context where prodigious events had taken place and helped me establish a new perspective that allowed me to think anew about what had happened to me in, of all places, Las Vegas.
I went to Eugene seeing myself as one of the “burnt ones,” a notion I ran across in FLAWS IN THE GLASS, the autobiography of Australian novelist, Patrick White, a Nobel Prize winning writer. Some of the characters in his novels are called “burnt ones” because of searing experience of one kind or another. They are souls anointed by fire, by being in extremis, being thereafter ‘touched’ or capable of wider scope and understanding. Being burnt also separates you from the herd. I felt so different because I was walking around with a secret in my heart that I felt I’d have a hard time trying to explain it to others. My interior life had been had been elevated and expanded, but yet I felt the Mark of Cain was on my forehead, which made me feel vulnerable and exposed to danger or ridicule. I had had a dramatic experience that few people have, of the hidden chakras, of death and rebirth, of luminous vision and mystical knowledge, but I was reluctant to talk about these things openly. I was convinced people would think I was one crazy son-of-a-bitch. I did take a lot of shit from the political activists on campus who were very irritated with me for withdrawing from political activism—they saw me as a cop out—and could not buy my story of a transformation from “born agitator” to “introspective voyager.”
This is when the ascetic ideal became meaningful to me, a notion I conceptualized as “God’s Athlete over the Abyss.” Where that idea came from would be tedious to trace here; but let me illustrate what I mean. There is a story about J.M.W. Turner that is apt here. You saw many of his paintings at the Tate Museum in London in 1998. Turner wanted to understand the nature of a storm at sea, so he could portray it better in his work, so he had himself tied to the mast and suffered through a raging storm. Or take the example of Vincent van Gogh who wrote about a similar orientation in one of his letters to his brother Theo.
“The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore. They leave that philosophy to those who like it. Let the storm arise, the night descend; which is worse, dangers or the fear of dangers? For my part I prefer the reality, the danger itself.”
Turner survived his storm, prospered and lived a long time with honors bestowed on him. Van Gogh committed suicide while in his late thirties, but the fecundity of his creativity and its expressive quality and power cannot be questioned. I have survived my INFERNO too, which came in three phases, and when I die I will leave a testament to what I have learned on this twittering orb of a planet.
“The Inferno” took place over a two week period in July 1968 while your mother and I were living in Las Vegas. Why did I use that term? First of all, “The Inferno” is a reference to two authors, Dante and August Strindberg, both of whom wrote books called THE INFERNO, books that deal with hellish ordeals in the underworld that led to deeper vision of first and last things. Dante’s work was produced in the context of late medieval Christianity, that is, with a belief system that featured heaven, hell, and purgatory, ending with a cosmic beatific vision. Strindberg called his ordeal an Inferno experience because it paralleled a descent into the underworld, that is, it was the psychological equivalent, an encounter with personal demons that had long haunted his inner world. He experienced a schizoid episode that put him over the edge of sanity. In other words, it resembled an acid trip; he came back to terra firma. I would describe my INFERNO along the same lines: it was hellish and schizoid, but also visionary and mystical. It also happened during the infernal heat of the Mojave Desert in the summer. At certain moments during the ordeal I felt like I was a stand-in for St. Anthony during his trial in the desert: being under attack by unspeakable demons, alone, cut-off, and locked into a bottomless pit of blackness. (Something else I share with Strindberg is we both had psoriasis.)
This may sound strange to you two but I was poised between the sun and moon for those two magical weeks. The torrid orb of the sun dominated the daylight hours and the moon was the magnetic center of the night time hours. They both assumed an extraordinary significance for me during the length of the ordeal. They were like the polarities of consciousness for me and my life was the pendulum that swung back and forth between the two orbs of energy. They were the two ends of my psyche, the orange ball of fire during the day, and the white sphere of nighttime illumination, Sol et Luna. I always would go outside at dawn to stare at the rising sun coming up over the mountains on the eastern horizon; that was just before I would go to bed for several hours as I had stayed up all night during the summer. I did that for 5 summers while living in Las Vegas. At night I often took walks and sat out in the open desert and stared at the moon for long minutes, as if mesmerized, as if its vibe and power were penetrating me from that great distance in the heavens. I know how that must sound peculiar to you but that is how it felt to me at the time. It was up there and down here simultaneously. In the two week period of The Inferno the moon obviously changed shape but in my memory it was always a full, perfect, super-bright white circle. The Inferno state, while terrifying on certain levels, bestowed on me feelings of Cosmic Consciousness and a sense of the oneness of all things, which I have never lost.
For all the details of The Inferno please read PRIMUS ROTA, preferably the second version, which is not on the computer yet.
The first year after the experience was very strange. I was lost in a fog, nothing looked the same, and things had been transfigured. I’d go to the supermarket at 3 AM and see showgirls shopping after their shows with their make-up still on; to me they were like gaudy apparitions with goop on their faces. I was flying high inside The Magic Theater that Herman Hesse wrote about in one of his novels. I wasn’t sure if a veil had been ripped away from my perceptions or if one had been added. When the semester started I went through the motions of teaching, just like before, but I was no longer identified with my actions; my career and my role on campus were like ashes in my mouth. They had lost their previous flavor. I walked among my colleagues like a ghost, not connecting with them either. They were puppets in a play I was no longer part of. I was not the same individual anymore, but exactly who I was, I wasn’t at all sure. But I did know I could not continue to do the same kind of painting and drawing that I had been doing for the past 4 or 5 years. The experience that was my Baptism by Fire had me thinking I had to find another way, a manner and style more aligned with my new if hazy understanding. New self-knowledge had me thinking and feeling down different avenues, which, I felt, called for a new expression.
The second semester that school year, 1968-1969, was a time of decision for your mother and I. She decided she wanted to go back to school for a Masters in film and dance. Since I needed time to evaluate the Inferno experience, I was game to try and obtain a leave and go with her to wherever she wants to go to school, which turned out to be the University of Oregon. The Administration was more than happy to give me a leave (without pay) to get rid of me for at least a year. It was a smart move to get out of town; it lifted me out of a context where prodigious events had taken place and helped me establish a new perspective that allowed me to think anew about what had happened to me in, of all places, Las Vegas.
I went to Eugene seeing myself as one of the “burnt ones,” a notion I ran across in FLAWS IN THE GLASS, the autobiography of Australian novelist, Patrick White, a Nobel Prize winning writer. Some of the characters in his novels are called “burnt ones” because of searing experience of one kind or another. They are souls anointed by fire, by being in extremis, being thereafter ‘touched’ or capable of wider scope and understanding. Being burnt also separates you from the herd. I felt so different because I was walking around with a secret in my heart that I felt I’d have a hard time trying to explain it to others. My interior life had been had been elevated and expanded, but yet I felt the Mark of Cain was on my forehead, which made me feel vulnerable and exposed to danger or ridicule. I had had a dramatic experience that few people have, of the hidden chakras, of death and rebirth, of luminous vision and mystical knowledge, but I was reluctant to talk about these things openly. I was convinced people would think I was one crazy son-of-a-bitch. I did take a lot of shit from the political activists on campus who were very irritated with me for withdrawing from political activism—they saw me as a cop out—and could not buy my story of a transformation from “born agitator” to “introspective voyager.”
This is when the ascetic ideal became meaningful to me, a notion I conceptualized as “God’s Athlete over the Abyss.” Where that idea came from would be tedious to trace here; but let me illustrate what I mean. There is a story about J.M.W. Turner that is apt here. You saw many of his paintings at the Tate Museum in London in 1998. Turner wanted to understand the nature of a storm at sea, so he could portray it better in his work, so he had himself tied to the mast and suffered through a raging storm. Or take the example of Vincent van Gogh who wrote about a similar orientation in one of his letters to his brother Theo.
“The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore. They leave that philosophy to those who like it. Let the storm arise, the night descend; which is worse, dangers or the fear of dangers? For my part I prefer the reality, the danger itself.”
Turner survived his storm, prospered and lived a long time with honors bestowed on him. Van Gogh committed suicide while in his late thirties, but the fecundity of his creativity and its expressive quality and power cannot be questioned. I have survived my INFERNO too, which came in three phases, and when I die I will leave a testament to what I have learned on this twittering orb of a planet.
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